Thread: Norton stone claning

Originally Posted by Marshal

With respect to the Naniwa rubbing stone - I tried it on my Norton 1, 4, and 8K hones tonight. Wasn't really a fan. It cleaned up the 8K stone pretty good, smooth bright yellow surface left behind. But it turned the 4K a dingy orange color indicating the stone was impregnated with Naniwa dressing stone bits. And I'm picky when it comes to cross contamination. I don't want anything on my stones but the grit they were made of if at all possible. Needless to say the 4K needs a good lapping now to remove the dressing stone bits that I couldn't scrub out.

Interestingly enough, that didn't seem to be a problem on the 1K. But it also didn't do a thing to clean that up, the 1K just ate away at the dressing stone. So I guess I'll be lapping the 1K too. Kind of strange that the dressing stone is too soft to do anything at all to the 1K, cleaned the swarf from the 4K but also got abraded enough to contaminate it, yet cleaned up the 8K without a hitch. It also did pretty well on the Naniwa 800, but I guess it shouldn't come as a surprise that it works well for the line it was designed to work with and doesn't play well with another. YMMV.

Worked great on my Norton 4K but mine was an older one. Also worked very well on Shapton Glass hones 10K and 16K.

My 4k is one of the newer Made in Mexico ones, so maybe that has something to do with it?

Originally Posted by Marshal

My 4k is one of the newer Made in Mexico ones, so maybe that has something to do with it?

The Mexican ones do have bigger and much more numerous pores, so I would guess that they would be better able to accumulate swarf from a rubbing hone. HERE is an old thread with photos.

Originally Posted by Utopian

The Mexican ones do have bigger and much more numerous pores, so I would guess that they would be better able to accumulate swarf from a rubbing hone. HERE is an old thread with photos.

The one that I was referring to is American and looks like the top one in your photo but maybe a little less porous yet.

Seems I was wrong, just found the 4K hone box. Seems mine was made in Italy. Maybe I just left it a little too coarse the last time I lapped it? It feels much smoother now that I've given it a good once over with the EZE lap lapping plate, which I suspect is finer than my DMT 325. Or just more broken in, hard to tell for sure since it came in a lot and wasn't purchased by me first hand.

To clean a really nasty stone I use Bar keepers friend with a Scotch Bright pad. Just cleaned my 16K Shapton glass hone with that method.

Slawman

If you gently lap those stones after each use under running water as RezDog suggested, they will stay flat, clean and with the surface "refreshed" for every honing session.

You also want to use your diamond plate to chamfer/dress all the edges of your stones to avoid any rough edges catching and wrecking all the work you've done as your razor's edge crosses the stone's edge at the end of the stroke. In fact, I just now re-dressed my own Norton 4k and Naniwa 12k edges because they had gotten kind of rough and crumbly for whatever reason.

Also, lifting the edge (not the spine!) as you near the end of your stroke and prepare to flip helps with this too-plus it seems to make nearly everyone's honing strokes quicker, smoother and more consistent-you'll notice that in all the honing videos on YouTube. That one thing made all the difference for me! Good luck!

Lapping works, sure. But I like mine a little more broken in. The less I disturb the honing surface (and lap down the drain) the happier I tend to be. Diff'rent stroke for diff'rent folks I s'pose.

Yeah, honestly I'm probably an obsessive over-lapper, but I can't seem to help myself. I have honed on the hones of a couple of great hone-meisters at meets that were just filthy with grubby swarf and tape residue, so there you go-different strokes like you say.

On the other hand, I've seen guys post on here who say they lap after every set of strokes, then clean and start again on the same hone, so maybe I'm not the most obsessive one on the spectrum.

Oh I can't stand tape residue. That has to go post-haste. I don't necessarily mind a little swarf build up though. Probably comes from years of using naturals for knives and what not. They all had an eternal coating of black God-knows-what that kept you from seeing the stone below, but man they left a good edge on a knife.

well, I'm not as bad as I used to be. I'm no longer using spit, vegetable oil, and motor oil on my Arkies. Even for knives. And most of my stones do get some level of cleaning and maintenance. I guess the good habits are startin' to rub off a little bit.